A Poll

I am wondering if you can help me with something? I am wondering how many people you have seen with missing limbs that have been cut off by fast moving vehicles whipping by their car windows? I was also wondering how many of you have seen people missing eyes from falling on sticks while running? I have to admit I have met one person with a missing eye from a stick. But it didn't stick him in the eye while he was running. He got hit in the eye while walking through the woods, and someone let the branch go. Did they never walk through the forest with a forester? For goodness sake! Did that person's friend not learn that you always hold the branch for the person behind you?

Anyway, back to the subject. I wonder why we as mothers tell our kids they are going to get their hand knocked off if they stick their arm out the window while the car is moving. When I was little I did it on purpose to see if it would "work." By my estimate a child's arm can reach about 5 inches or so out of the window, and in my opinion at this stage of the game, we would have much bigger problems if a car was driving 5 inches from our car window. Don't get me wrong. I don't let my kids hang out of the windows while we are driving. It just struck me as funny today when I said it to Evan. Even after I analyzed my statement, I still repeated it and added an "I am serious" to it. Hmm, I wonder how big the ball of gum is in his stomach.

Squirrel Traps

What is this you ask? It is a squirrel trap. The first thing you would need to make one of these for yourself is a boxing helmet. The one you put on your little brother before you hit him in the face with the boxing gloves will work fine. Then you need the dog leash. Next place some cut-up apples in the helmet and set it where you see the squirrels in your yard. Build a fort out of all of your mother's clean towels and blankets before she notices since she never can get caught up on the laundry and can never find a clean towel for herself. Once she sees how cute you are she won't freak out because you will melt her heart...again. Hide inside for at least an hour and wait like the patient, intense person that you are. Have your mother give you a lecture on the dangers of squirrels just in case for some reason you catch one which would be just her luck. Be the little boy that you are.

When they were young...

I made these dresses for my kids. No I did not make them out of curtains. They were actually a lot of work and probably the last things I really sewed because they took so long. But the girls were worth it all. Aren't they precious? Oh, and just so you know, I am better now. There is nothing quite like crying for 2 days to make you feel human again. I am off to embrace middle age and the things it brings. Thanks for the listening ear.

This place I am in...

How did I get to the place where my emotions are so raw? I feel like my heart is exposed to the air, when it is suppose to be tucked neatly in my body. It would have been so much easier if I would have never become a mother. I could have remained numb rather than being exposed like a person who has had the sheet ripped off of them by someone they trust. I am a mother of small children and a mother of adults. I am still wiping bottoms, but helping my children pack and move. I have had children leave before it was their time to leave. I have been rejected and looked up to at the same time. I feel my children pushing against me to get away and yet wanting to still be safe in my arms. Tugging, pushing, tugging pushing. Do I reach or put my arms down to my sides to help them move on. I don't know how to do this, and there are no answers. It is just what I have to do. This is what I have to feel. There is no getting around this mountain I am facing, and it scares me. I don't know if I have the endurance to face it. It is too big. How can my feelings catch up with reality? How do I allow my roll to change without feeling like I am being ripped apart from the inside? How do I play all the rolls that are expected of me? How do I not feel guilt for my failures, but proud of myself for the things I have survived? How do I believe that they see past my mistakes and realize that I would stop breathing for them? That I tried. That I did my best. That they were and are everything to me. How do I face this next level of maturity? How do I stop crying? How do I grieve because I want to sit in the park and read library books to my little girls who are dressed in jumpers I made them with the smell of fall in the air and the sound of their innocent voices telling me they love me. How do I welcome the people they have become? How do I do this gracefully?

Please let me pee alone!

I have probably said it before, but I honestly think my kids have some kind of radar that goes off whenever I go to the bathroom. I don't think I have ever gone to the bathroom without someone knocking on the door, standing outside of the door, texting me, or calling my name. Seriously. What is up with that?

Four Eyes in the Middle of the Night

"Kids, kids." I heard my dad's voice, but I wasn't sure where it was coming from. As I opened my eyes, I saw him looking down at me. "We have something to show you." I followed him through the house rubbing my eyes. As I walked into the kitchen, I noticed the potbellied stove in the corner with its coal-black stove pipe sitting next to it, not attached to the stove or to the ceiling. I don't remember it being cold without the stove, so it must have been warmer weather in the Colorado mountains. Marq, Stephanie, and I looked up into the round hole in the ceiling where the stove pipe should have been to find four eyes staring back at us. I wonder why they didn't scurry away when they saw us or heard three excited children. But, they didn't. They just looked back at us. There was a family of raccoons living in our attic. Wildlife was part of our lives. It wasn't an unusual experience to be woke up in the middle of the night, or at least what felt like the middle of the night to us kids. I have many memories like this.

Ah, the things we remember.